ULA CEO essay on launch vehicle optimization

[ILikeIke]

The CEO of ULA (Tory Bruno) put out this article about how launch vehicles are optimized. As somebody who works on satellite side of the industry, I thought it was really well-written, and had some cool insights about how "the other side" works.

https://medium.com/@ToryBrunoULA/the-secrets-of-rocket-design-revealed-e2c7fc89694c

[RCgothic]

Tory Bruno gets a big pass for being a thoroughly nice guy. But it's a very pro-what-ULA-developed slant on the whole process for obvious reasons. I agree entirely with this Twitter thread rebuttal:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ILikeIke]

Oh, it's totally corporate propaganda. I'd expect nothing less given that it sounds like ULA is being spun off. But it's well-written and does a good job defending the design choices he oversaw (even if, like Ozan, I don't agree with most of them).
I thought the real value was in 'this is what ULA optimizes rocket designs for', in contrast to the small launcher market. This is particularly worth considering in light of the upcoming sale, and perhaps of interest to the RSS/RO and roleplay communities on the forum independently of that.

To Ozan's point about LEO Centaur - I speculate that's gonna be the one for the CST-100 Starliner.